The Things She Taught Him
by Siena Christmas
Summary: 'His whole life, Enoch had been surrounded by corpses. He knew death when he saw it, and now he knew that death had clouded those wonderful, beautiful eyes. Her name puffed from his mouth, no more than a breathy whisper. "Olive."' What if Enoch had been too late to save Olive?


_A/N: After seeing the movie and reading the first book all in one night, this story pretty much wrote itself in one sitting. I did proofread, but even so, I apologize for any grammatical or spelling errors. I hope you all enjoy!_

 _Warnings: Death, mourning, sadness, slightly cheesy ending_

 _Notes: The giant chunk written in italics is a flashback._

 ** _The Things She Taught Him_**

Sometimes, Enoch hated being peculiar.

It was so terrifying, so gory, to other people, this power of animating the dead. They kept their distance of the boy who carried sheep hearts in his pocket, who moulded dolls out of clay. He was weird, even for a peculiar, and it bothered him when he didn't like his peculiarity when he should be proud of it. When he heard Millard, the invisible boy, say he loved being invisible. When Hugh commented on how he loved the bees inside his stomach, because they were his friends. Everyone else enjoyed their peculiarity. Reveled in it.

And for awhile, Olive had convinced Enoch that his power was amazing.

She used to watch as he animated small clay men, used to cheer as he made them fight each other. Used to gasp, "Oh Enoch, you're brilliant!" and he had only a few times offered a small, crooked smile that she couldn't even see. Had he ever told her how much she'd meant to him? Had he ever said anything to even hint at the fact that...he had feelings...?

Now that chance was gone.

Enoch sat at dinner one night, after the loop had been restored. After Miss Peregrine had been saved and Barron, destroyed. The other children were quiet, and Enoch felt Miss Peregrine's sharp eyes on him.

"Enoch, please eat your dinner," she said firmly, yet gently.

Enoch didn't dare meet her eyes. He feared that if he did, he might cry. Calmly, he lifted up his fork and knife and began to cut up the meat on his plate. The room was so silent, one could hear that bees buzzing in Hugh's stomach. Someone cleared their throat, and that seemed to break the ice a little for everyone else. "This is wonderful steak, Miss Peregrine," offered Jake awkwardly. "Oh yes, it's wonderful," added Fiona quickly. "I like it too," said Millard, and suddenly everyone was complimenting the steak, but after that, the room once again fell into silence.

Enoch's meat was cut up into bite-size pieces now, but he continued to slice it into even smaller bits, smaller and smaller, while the tension at the table grew and grew and Enoch could feel people glancing at him and he knew they were concerned, but he didn't care. To his right he heard Emma mutter something to Jake, he let his eyes rest on them, just for a second. But then he saw the chair, the empty chair to the left of Horace on the opposite side of the table. Empty, empty, empty.

His hands began to shake and he viciously began to slice everything on his plate. His vision blurred.

Finally, the pressure in the room became too much, and little Claire, the youngest in the Home, burst out, as if she'd been holding it in for a long time and had finally popped under the tension, "Miss Peregrine, when's Olive coming back?"

It was as if time had stopped. Every single person at the table froze, and Enoch became petrified. He knew that everyone was looking at him now. Claire's innocent inquiry bounced back and forth in his head, echoing louder and louder. "When's Olive coming back..."

"When's Olive coming back..."

"When's Olive..."

"Olive..."

"OLIVE..."

Enoch's hands began to shake so hard that he dropped his silverware, his world tipped sideways as a black cloud filled his vision. Distantly, he heard several surprised shouts and Claire crying. And suddenly, without warming, he was at the fair again.

 _When he woke from being hit by Barron, his head was pounding. He could feel his heartbeat reverberating strongly throughout his entire body: thump thump, thump thump... In front of him, two figures wavered in and out of focus. A man had his hand on Olive's shoulder. Struggling to arise, Enoch blinked. The girl wasn't fighting, only tightly grasping at the man's hand. Her slim body quaked minutely, and suddenly Enoch's vision focused sharply: ice. There was ice on his Olive. Ice creeping across her skin, solidifying quickly and canceling out her power of pyrokinesis. "Olive!" her name, meant to be a yell, came out as a like an instant realization, as if he'd been pondering a question for hours, and had just then, with soft wonder, finally found the answer._

 _Olive. He was hurting Olive._

 _No one hurts my Olive, he thought with a burst of hot fury._

 _Enoch was not a physically strong person. Both his attempts to stop the Hallowgast and Barron had resulted in unconsciousness and a headache. Therefore, he didn't rush the man freezing Olive. Instead, he used his peculiarity. His gift. "Oh, isn't he brilliant?" he heard an echo of Olive's voice exclaiming. Enoch had never thanked her._

 _He rushed about, the confidence in his actions calming him, steadying his hands. He knew what he was doing. He was going to animate a lifeless object, give life to the lifeless, and he was going to save Olive Elephanta..._

 _...with an elephant._

 _The beating heart inside it, the large, fake elephant came alive. With eerie creaking and clicking of gears, the creature struggled to its feet, its wide black and white eye resting directly on the Ice Man._

 _"Forward," Enoch thought, the puppetmaster controlling his puppet. "Forward and kill."_

 _It happened within seconds. The Ice Man turned, his face contorting with horror when he saw the machine sent to slaughter him. His deadly grip on Olive was removed, and she stiffly collapsed. The Ice Man ran backwards in attempt to escape, but it was too late. The elephant crushed him like a mouse._

 _His powers were no good against Enoch._

 _But Enoch had no time to revel in his victory. Instead, his inner mantra of OliveOliveOlive shoved his wobbly legs forward, and his knees gave out beside the red-haired girl, his throat constricting at her condition._

 _Her face, covered with ice and frozen, her warm blue eyes, once so alive and compassionate, cold and dull. His whole life, Enoch had been surrounded by corpses. He knew death when he saw it, and now he knew that death had clouded those wonderful, beautiful eyes. Her name puffed from his mouth, no more than a breathy whisper. "Olive." He bent over her frozen body, ice having snuffed out her warmth. He shook her, grasping arms so cold. "Olive." She looked past him, as only the dead can. He shook her harder, fingers pressing into her skin,_

 _convinced that she was still there, she was still there underneath all that ice. Hoping that there was still enough fire to melt the film of death from her eyes._

 _Fire. So warm, she had melted his heart of stone._

 _"Olive." Her name choked him, a lump in his throat. There was so much he hadn't told her, so much he wanted to say. She'd always been there for him, even when he'd been a miserable wretch, when no one else wanted to be around him. He'd taken her for granted, and now...now he'd never get the chance to tell her how much he cared._

 _Tears pricked his eyes, hot tears for his frozen girl. Gently, he leaned forward and placed a soft kiss on her lips. Cold. He waited for her to wake, irrationally hoping that the unusual affection would shock her to life again._

 _Nothing happened._

 _Enoch felt his eyes overflow, and his vision blurred. His ears began to ring and he couldn't hear himself whispering "Olive, no, please. Come back. Come back. Come back." He cupped her icy face in his hands and stroked her cheek. "Please, Olive. I'll be better. I'll be happy. Come back."_

 _But she didn't, and he gathered up her body in his arms, hugging her close to his chest. He buried his face in her wet hair, which crinkled and broke a little at his touch. "No...no..." he repeated brokenly, and before he knew it, he was sobbing._

 _"Olive...Olive...please...OLIVE!"_

"OLIVE!" he woke screaming. But she wasn't there. Instead, the faces of Miss Peregrine, Emma, and Jake hovered concernedly over him. "Enoch," said Miss Peregrine worriedly but with a mask of calm. "You must calm yourself. Collapsing at dinner is not something that is encouraged in this House."

"I..." Enoch tried, but no words came out. He looked at Emma, who had tears in her eyes. Whether they were for Olive or him, or both, he didn't know. Jake stood next to her with a haunted expression on his face, his whole body taut and rigid and he looked at Enoch and said, "I'm sorry."

"It wasn't your fault," Enoch snapped bitterly, yet somehow lacking his usual bite. He shut up, then, and lay still. He gathered that he was in bed, but didn't care. Olive was gone, and he had tried to save her with his useless peculiarity. He had failed.

"Enoch, won't you please stop blaming yourself," demanded Miss Peregrine gently. "It was not your fault, and Miss Elephanta would not want you to blame yourself."

Enoch heard his headmistress's voice quiver, and he looked to see that Miss Peregrine, their strong, business-like yet loving Miss Peregrine, had tears sparkling in her dark eyes. And Enoch knew she blamed herself.

It hit him, then, that everyone in the house was suffering, Miss Peregrine probably most of all. Not just him. He saw Olive's face in his mind again, and this time, she was smiling. Her warmth and kindness swelled in his heart, and as Enoch saw her now, she seemed to say, "Help them, Enoch. Help them. Go on."

Instead, Enoch said, "I could've brought her back."

"No," said Miss Peregrine. "You know it wouldn't have lasted."

Enoch knew that, but a part of him still ached for her presence. Part of him wished they hadn't burned her body, even though that's what Olive had wanted. The dark void inside of him was screaming, raw and _hollow_.

Was this what he'd become?

"I'm a hallowgast," he breathed faintly. And then Miss Peregrine's arms were around him and Emma and Jake were gone. "No," she said, her voice muffled in his hair. "No, my dear Enoch, you're not. You're my boy, and I love you. Nothing can change that."

Enoch hesitated before embracing the ymbryne. Always, Miss Peregrine had displayed her unconditional, motherly love for him. No matter what dark mood he found himself steeped in, no matter what harsh words spilled from his lips, no matter how gruesome his peculiarity actually was, Miss Peregrine had always cared.

Now, as she tightly held her oldest boy, Enoch clung to her and realized that, not only had he never shown Olive love, not only had he taken Olive for granted...he'd taken every single person in this house for granted as well.

Emma, Jake, Hugh, Horace, Millard, Bronwyn, Fiona, Claire, the Twins, and especially Miss Peregrine. Maybe it was the fact that they'd been living the same day over and over for seventy-five years. Maybe it was because no danger had found its way into the Home for a long, long time. He'd taken everything for granted. Even when Victor had been so cruelly torn from their lives, Enoch had taken things for granted.

He realized that, even in death, Olive still taught him how to be more alive.

And he recognized Miss Peregrine was right. Olive would surely be mournful if he was mourning, not doing a thing with the lessons learned. But, as Enoch made up his mind to _appreciate_ , he felt the room warm by a good lot and realized Olive was still _here_. He saw her briefly, standing at the window.

He would appreciate, now. He would appreciate every single day. The wound was still there, and it was still painful and raw, but he still had Miss Peregrine and the others in his life, and he would pass on Olive's message. And he would try to give a smile.

He would give what Olive gave him, and as long as she walked with him in spirit, things would get better.

Things would get better, a little at a time.

 ** _Fine._**


End file.
